"slings and arrows of outrageous fortune"

There's a line from Hamlet that can be taken in from a chronic illness stand point. I have been having troubles controlling my symptoms for the last week (won't go into the details now), but as one of my (lets just call him a mentor) told me, while I was crying over the phone worrying, that "you can't control the uncontrollable." He gave me some needed perspective on my situation, he has a chronic illness himself and has friends and colleagues that also live with chronic illnesses. He talked me through it by asking me questions like: have you gotten enough sleep? Have you been eating?

 

He knows I am stressed with finals week coming up. He was helping me figure out what my "triggers" are. Triggers are what causes, essentially, a flare up. Mine, as I found out are: lack of sleep, caffeine, stress, not eating in a while...and that is all I have so far. So yeah, as I ponder this I wonder how the hell am I going to escape these four "triggers"? I am never hungry and when I do eat, I eat very little (small stomach), I am a caffeine addict (Starbucks), I am a college student, so there goes the sleep and here comes the stress.

 

Also, while I have been thinking about all of these things I remembered what one of my very supportive professors had sent me in an email about my "misfortune." He said that he suspects that it ""weighs heavily on you (something you always took for granted suddenly creating trouble) and sometimes artistic expression gives us permission to explore the limits of our own existence (the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" as Hamlet says)."" So yeah pretty freaking deep, right?? I am not going to lie, when I first read this email I cried. I felt as if someone understood me and my "misfortune."

 

But not until today did I actually look up the meaning of what Hamlet had said in  Act 3 Scene 1. It is obviously a metaphor, someone said that Hamlet is talking about "suffering and enduring the hardships of a situation that he is in." Someone else said that it means to "put up with all of the bad things life has to offer." Everyone has their own interpretation of Hamlet but, I think I like the first one. That is what a chronic illness is, it is enduring a hardship of a situation that I was put in and there is nothing I can do about it.